Question about setting cutting depth in Carbide Create

I have a 5 Pro with 65mm spindle. I’ve been having issues with the carving going about 1/4 inch deeper than my stock. In Create tool path, I was setting the cutting depth start at “Use Top of Stock” and inputting the max depth at stock thickness plus .002 (i.e. inputting 0.502 if my stock is 1/2 inch) to make sure I would get all the way through the stock. Consistently, the carve would be about 1/4 inch below my stock, making a mess of my waste board. So, I experimented manually setting the start depth at 0.000 and continued to input max depth as described above. Bingo! Now my carve is working as expected.

Have others experienced this if using “Use Top of Stock” as the starting depth? Does the retract height in Job Setup have any bearing on this? As a coincidence, my retract heigh is 1/4".

Retract height should only be an issue if it is set so high that the machine bottoms out against the top of movement and loses steps.

Usually the difficulty you describe is caused by a disconnect in between job setup:

https://carbide3d.com/hub/courses/create/job-setup/

and how origin is set relative to the stock:

https://carbide3d.com/hub/courses/running-shapeoko/movements-zeroing/

Thank you for that info. I’m certain it is something I’m doing incorrectly like missing a step or not understanding clearly. For now, entering my cutting depths manually seems to be working. At some point, I would like to learn to use some of the variables such as t+.

I use bottom of material for almost all through cuts. I replaced my spoilboard 2 years ago and there is barely any scars. I just move to the spoilboard and use my Bitzero to set the bottom of material. If you go into jog there are rapid positions of X and Y and Z+6MM. Be sure to have the bit off the material before doing the Z+6mm or you will crash into your stock.

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